UVA School of Architecture, A Council of Things

A COUNCIL OF THINGSS h i q i a o L i

University of Virginia | Department of Architecture

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Publisher

Editors

Research Director

Credits

Paper Matters Press | Department of Architecture, University of Virginia

Iñaki Alday, Ryan Carbone

Shiqiao Li

Copyright Texts | By authorCopyright Drawings | By authorCopyright Model Photos | Scott Smith / By authorCopyright Edition | Department of Architecture, University of Virginia

Graphic Design | Ryan CarboneLayout | Ryan CarboneProduction | Ryan Carbone

Printing | Department of Architecture, University of VirginiaISBN First Edition | March 2016

Architecture, as part of a research institution is a pedagogical program based in social responsibility, critical thinking and innovation. And as a design discipline, architectural innovation is achieved through design research in different ways. We “search” for information, and we “research” creating knowledge, most often on new scenarios through design speculation seriously informed. Rigorous collection of data, spatialized through mapping and diagraming, create the basis for design research. The critical step forward, assuming the risks of proposing future scenarios, is the unavoidable outcome of the creative work of the research teams.

The Research Studio system is the pedagogical innovation that merges instruction with faculty and students research. Two studios in the undergraduate program (3010 and 4010) and another two in the graduate program (7010 and 8010) are focused on profound architectural research aligned with research interests and expertise of the faculty members. The instructors commit for three to five years to sustain a research line, offering a series of Research Studios that take on a variety of relevant contemporary topics in a consistent multi-year research agenda. Students define their personal path through the program, selecting the research studios offered by Architecture faculty (and Landscape Architecture for the graduates), in their own preferred sequence for the fall of the last two years (3010 and 4010 or 7010 and 8010).

The diversity of topics reflects the intellectual diversity of the Department of Architecture of the University of Virginia. Research projects take on urgent international crises such as the changing condition of the Arctic, neglected cultural landscapes in depressed regions, or one of the most pressing urban ecologies challenge in the world (Delhi and its sacred and poisonous Yamuna River). Others work within local conditions, disciplinary inquiries or philosophical and spatial investigations.

Started in 2012-13, these first four years have been especially instrumental for the development of the youngest faculty, raising $529,000 in grants, five awards and two international symposiums. One of the research projects has become the first all-university grand challenge project. The Research Studio system of UVa has proven itself to be invaluable in defining what “design research” means, its potential to reach broader audiences and impact critical contemporary situations, and to redefine the research culture in the design schools.

Charlottesville, Virginia | March 2016

IñAkI ALdAyQUeSAdA PrOFeSSOr ANd CHAIr, dePArTmeNT OF ArCHITeCTUre

A COUNCIL OF THINGS

P R E FAC E

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Shiqiao Li took up his position in 2012 as Weedon Professor in Asian Architecture, School of Architecture, University of Virginia, where he teaches and researches into emerging issues in contemporary Chinese cities. This adds to a teaching portfolio which includes history and theory courses and design studio instruction; under his studio instruction, his students won several first prizes in international student design competitions, and were nominated and shortlisted for RIBA President’s Medal. He studied architecture at Tsinghua University in Beijing and obtained his PhD from AA School of Architecture and Birkbeck College, University of London. Li practiced architecture in London and Hong Kong, and initiated design proposals which were published and exhibited in journals and international exhibitions. His writings appeared in: Bauwelt, Domus China, World Architecture, Cultural Politics, Theory Culture & Society, Cultural Studies (Wenhua Yanjiu), The Journal of Architecture, Journal of Architectural Education, Architectural Theory Review, Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, and Journal of Society of Architectural Historians. His books include Understanding the Chinese City (London: Sage, 2014), Architecture and Modernization (xiandai sixiang zhong de jianzhu, Beijing, 2009) and Power and Virtue, Architecture and Intellectual Change in England 1650-1730 (London and New York: Routledge, 2007). He is External Examiner for PhD degrees at the RMIT University and University of New South Wales, International Judge for RIBA President’s Medal for Dissertations in 2006.

SHIQIAO LIWeedon ProfessordePartment of architecture

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lizhe hanlaurence hollandjared hugginsmohamed ismailtariq khalafxiaoshuo leimac morecocksara neelmargaret nerstenmikhail Paysonaj Peterskari roynesdalsuzanne sharPelizabeth sinyardbrianna thomPsonaustin Walkerqintian Wangallen WardoWen Weinsteindillon Wilsontensae Woldesellasiechris young

A COUNCIL OF THINGS 3

ST U D I O T E A M

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Architecture is the very substances and spatial organizations that establish boundaries between realms of the human and the natural, categories of worlds that lie at the root of the constructs of modernity. As we contemplate the triumphs and calamities of modernization, we are compelled to reformulate these boundaries in order to allow meaningful and effective environmental actions. This studio is committed to the development of these reformulations; it thinks with the works of Bruno Latour, Timothy Morton, and Jane Bennett in order to articulate material strategies. The points of entry are new political spaces: a Council of Things, in the forms of student councils and a new Smithsonian institute of the National Museum of the Environment located at the National Mall in Washington DC; this takes the studio to the forefront of constructing world institutions at the heart of some of the most powerful spaces of modernity in the world. The studio is deeply invested in a radical redistribution of powers and privileges between humans and nonhuman things.

Blending experiences of practice with potentials of conceptual thinking, Shiqiao Li’s teaching and research seeks design and knowledge insights through a dialectic of materials and ideas. In both studios and classrooms, this dual commitment to things and thoughts is manifested in several forms, from critiquing systems of multinational finance to re-framing architectural terrains between the human and the nonhuman. Architecture is both a craft and a way of thought; it offers a uniquely influential means to respond to the central intellectual agendas of our time with thoughtful and skillful design actions in the ever more constructed environment.

MethodologyBeginning with a deep humility, the studio first imagines the power of things through installations that demonstrate indigenous spatial logics of actants, against the normative triumphant display of human invincibility in design. The themes and forms developed in these installations will then be carried on with a design project that embraces the transformative force to advance original designs. Technologies are considered in this context as part of the transformative force.

ExPanDED Rights to ExistEnCE

tRansfoRmativE foRCE bEyonD hUman invinCibility

RE-imagining bUilDing tEChnologiEs

A COUNCIL OF THINGS 5

R E S E A R C H D R I V E RS

ExPanDED Rights to ExistEnCE

What are the existing and fundamental networks between animate beings and inanimate things? The first driver of the studio is a critical project: to revisit the intellectual edifices constructed a long time ago with a narrow understanding of equality and the environment.

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Morecock, M. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS

In a vast series of vertical cuts into the topography, the Cabinet transforms the taxidermied landscape into an ecological excavation.

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DRIVER 1 | EXPANDED RIGHTS

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Cubillos-Torres, A. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS

The museum of life support systems takes roots in botanical art.This method of representation was a technology crafting our

relationship and understanding of nature. Artists and botanists engaged us with nature by trying to vivify represented species

through composition, color, etc...

D R I V E R 1 | E X PA N D E D R I G H TS

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In the same way that the study of natural history from taxidermy to modern zoos has led to the changing relationships between human and animal actors, this Park proposes an evolutionary method for changing our relationship between human and nonhuman actors.

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Weinstein, O. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS


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Is my personal obsession with

pressed flowers naive? superficial? Should I feel guilty

that I appreciate - what I have

considered - ‘nature’ in this way?

The origins of this botanical form of art trace back to human

use of the ‘natural’ resources for medical

purposes. Botanical art took roots in an

intimate rapport of human reliance on nature for their

well-being. Art and science were one;

botany and medicine were one.

What if these couples were still fused? What

if we studied nature, human inventions,

and hybrid inventions impartially

as ‘medicine’? What if this form of art-

science expressed our fascination for

biological as well as technological, and

hybrid forms? Can we see life in ‘things’?

Botanical Art


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tRansfoRmativE foRCE bEyonD

hUman invinCibilityWhat are the tectonic and systemic forms that are crucial to robust ecological systems? As we modify our environment out of self-interest and ignorance, how thoughtful have we been in ensuring the integrity of systems? The second driver suspends human invincibility, turns to thing power to guide our installations, leading to surprising and unusual material and spatial outcomes.

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Han, L. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS

DRIVER 2 | BEYOND HUMAN INVINCIBILITY

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The museum [of life support systems] extends this exercise of vivification by making it an

integral part of our appreciation of nature, and making the agents exercising it visible, revealing the actors designing nature and our

relationship with it.Transparency and creativity are the

foundations of the museum.

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D R I V E R 2 | B E YO N D H U M A N I N V I N C I B I L I TY

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Han, L. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS


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What is common to the visual arts, industrial design, architecture, and the digital world has likewise become common to the rest of culture and society; i.e., society today continues to depend more and more on digital interfaces for everything from commerce to communication. This transition has been both marked and facilitated by the proliferation of electronic devices that allow subjects to withdraw from the conventional spatial-temporal matrix and extend their senses around the world. The proliferation of such cyborg objects has caused a restructuring of the preconceived thresholds between categories of material-cultural production and the value of physical location. Whereas pre-cyborg cultures structured their identity-formation on where you are and with whom you associated, cyborg societies have escaped the destiny of geo-location. The upending of conventional modes of association by the digital requires a retheorizing of the body in space.

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Wilson, D. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS


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RE-imagining bUilDing

tEChnologiEsThe human technological power of building without control is like freedom without responsibility; neither is possible. Here, we return to the power of building in a radically changed context. Students are challenged to rethink technological possibilities, taking them not as isolated tools but as beings of dependency: how do they relate to a world as we redefine and reformulate it. Design insights arise from this framework.

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Walker, A. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS

DRIVER 3 | RE-IMAGINING TECHNOLOGY

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Walker, A. + Holland, L. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS

D R I V E R 3 | R E - I M AG I N I N G T E C H N O LO G Y

These small viewing terminals, concentrated in public areas, allow views of, but not physical access to, objects in the collection.

The automated object retrieval system is also one of the primary circulation systems. Visitors and researchers can call an elevator to these dedicated pods, and be delivered, in two dimensions, anywhere on the storage wall.

These basic carrels allow for individual research, examination, and conservation of low-maintenance objects

ELEVATOR LOBBY

BASIC RESEARCH

VISITOR VIEWING

digital collection terminal retrieves objects and displays information

call buttons

full search andretrieval terminal

These small viewing terminals, concentrated in public areas, allow views of, but not physical access to, objects in the collection.

The automated object retrieval system is also one of the primary circulation systems. Visitors and researchers can call an elevator to these dedicated pods, and be delivered, in two dimensions, anywhere on the storage wall.

These basic carrels allow for individual research, examination, and conservation of low-maintenance objects

ELEVATOR LOBBY

BASIC RESEARCH

VISITOR VIEWING

digital collection terminal retrieves objects and displays information

call buttons

full search andretrieval terminal

ELEVATOR CAR

BASIC OBJECTS

FLAT FILE

SHELVING

HANGINGGROW POD

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with the wet collection, comprised primarily of biological specimens stored

formaldehyde.

These units maintain a dust-free environment for investigation and maintenance of some of the collection’s most delicate specimens.

WET LAB

CLEAN LAB

sprinkler system

soft-wall dust-free space

curtain door with air shower

gowning room

sinks and chemical hood

BASIC OBJECTS

FLAT FILE

SHELVING

HANGINGGROW POD

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Holland, L. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS


These units maintain an internal temperature below freezing, for handling of temperature-sensitive items including

tissue samples.

This unit, designed for the collection’s largest and heaviest artifacts, features a turnbuckle to facilitate orientation and manipulation of objects

COLD LAB

OVERSIZE LAB

sealed interface with cold storage pod

air lock and changing room

turntable for object re-orientation

super-insulated walls

BASIC OBJECTS

FLAT FILE

HANGINGCOLD STORAGE

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Cyborg

Digital

SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR CYBORG CULTURES

Dillon Wilson

Human

A

B 0 10 25 50 100

NFurnished Site Plan 1:500 Furnished Underground Plan 1:500

Site Section A 1:500 Site Section B 1:500

B

A

Devices Library

Object Display Cases

Projection Room

Mediawall

Display Panels

Digital Display Panels

Listening Rooms

Lounge

Virtual Reality Hub

Computer Laboratory

Café

Screening Room

Hybrids Workshop

Object Storage

Data Storage

In the 1960s, sociologists, philosophers, and cultural theorists began to speculate on the role played by objects in constructing self and society. Unlike earlier cultural analyses focusing on language, this new line of inquiry placed emphasis on the object as such, highlighting the way in which human beings and objects are bound together in a collusion that charges objects with cultural and emotional value.

Over the past few decades many of the most intriguing cultural products have emerged in the thresholds between the different disciplines of visual art, industrial design, architecture, and the digital world. While many of these disciplines have fluctuated between convergent and divergent trajectories, they have begun to converge once more with the digital as their primary point of union.

What is common to these disciplines has likewise become common to the rest of culture and society; i.e., society today continues to depend

more and more on digital interfaces for everything from commerce to communication. This transition has been both marked and facilitated by the proliferation of electronic devices that allow subjects to withdraw from the conventional spatial-temporal matrix and extend their senses around the world. The proliferation of such cyborg objects has caused a restructuring of the preconceived thresholds between categories of material-cultural production and the value of physical location. Whereas pre-cyborg cultures structured their identity-formation on where you are and with whom you associated, cyborg societies have escaped the destiny of geo-location. The upending of conventional modes of association by the digital requires a retheorizing of the body in space.

To reflect the significance of this transference within both creative practices and society at large, the museum contains three subordinate institutions: (i) a Digital Arts & Culture Museum, (ii) a Museum to the Cyborg Citizen, and (iii) a Mediatechnology Laboratory. In its essence, the

museum and its institutions seek to embody the new set of relationships between individuals and society in the cyborg world, and establish a space for the display and experimentation of new complicities between humans (or post-humans) and cyborg devices.

The birth of a new of museum on the National Mall is a rare occurrence and it has the unique potential to redefine the existential value of the digital and its place in cultural semiotics. To this end, the museum will perform as a platform for resisting the provision of a didactic and historically linear narrative, seeking alternatively to lend itself to any number of interpretations. The museum ultimately seeks both an osmotic relationship with its direct context, the National Mall and Constitution Ave NW, and to develop its own context as an imaginarium of alternative modes of existence.


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Cyborg

Digital

SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR CYBORG CULTURES

Dillon Wilson

Human

A

B 0 10 25 50 100

NFurnished Site Plan 1:500 Furnished Underground Plan 1:500

Site Section A 1:500 Site Section B 1:500

B

A

Devices Library

Object Display Cases

Projection Room

Mediawall

Display Panels

Digital Display Panels

Listening Rooms

Lounge

Virtual Reality Hub

Computer Laboratory

Café

Screening Room

Hybrids Workshop

Object Storage

Data Storage

In the 1960s, sociologists, philosophers, and cultural theorists began to speculate on the role played by objects in constructing self and society. Unlike earlier cultural analyses focusing on language, this new line of inquiry placed emphasis on the object as such, highlighting the way in which human beings and objects are bound together in a collusion that charges objects with cultural and emotional value.

Over the past few decades many of the most intriguing cultural products have emerged in the thresholds between the different disciplines of visual art, industrial design, architecture, and the digital world. While many of these disciplines have fluctuated between convergent and divergent trajectories, they have begun to converge once more with the digital as their primary point of union.

What is common to these disciplines has likewise become common to the rest of culture and society; i.e., society today continues to depend

more and more on digital interfaces for everything from commerce to communication. This transition has been both marked and facilitated by the proliferation of electronic devices that allow subjects to withdraw from the conventional spatial-temporal matrix and extend their senses around the world. The proliferation of such cyborg objects has caused a restructuring of the preconceived thresholds between categories of material-cultural production and the value of physical location. Whereas pre-cyborg cultures structured their identity-formation on where you are and with whom you associated, cyborg societies have escaped the destiny of geo-location. The upending of conventional modes of association by the digital requires a retheorizing of the body in space.

To reflect the significance of this transference within both creative practices and society at large, the museum contains three subordinate institutions: (i) a Digital Arts & Culture Museum, (ii) a Museum to the Cyborg Citizen, and (iii) a Mediatechnology Laboratory. In its essence, the

museum and its institutions seek to embody the new set of relationships between individuals and society in the cyborg world, and establish a space for the display and experimentation of new complicities between humans (or post-humans) and cyborg devices.


Wilson, D. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS


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Based on a schedule determined by the popularity, response, and impact of each theme the area of exploration of the Park will change. Old exhibits will not be discarded(put down) rather they will be re-curated and distributed across the country and world as a physical method of dissemination (wild release). This is all facilitated by a heavily mechanized infrastructure connecting the highway running under the site to the base of the building, the bulk of the exhibit space will be executed with the moving container exhibits.

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Weinstein, O. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS


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National Ontological Park

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Weinstein, O. + Wilson, D. | A COUNCIL OF THINGS


Smithsonian Center For Cyborg Cultures

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University of Virginia | Department of Architecture

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UVA School of Architecture, A Council of Things

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